


The Realm Beyond

by Kastaka



Category: Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
Genre: Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-14 23:33:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/pseuds/Kastaka





	The Realm Beyond

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seawench](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seawench/gifts).



 

 

Door stops short at the stall, half-hidden behind one of the pillars in Battersea Power Station's long-decommissioned turbine room.

"What's up?" Richard asks her.

"That's her," whispers Door. "That's Ingress."

She indicates one of the photographs with her eyes, trying not to attract too much attention from the stallholder. In return, the ratlike creature behind the stall watches her with beady eyes, looking for her weakness. Looking to make the sale.

"Excuse me," says Richard to the stallholder. He's never quite got the memo about subtlety in these kind of situations. It doesn't hurt his reputation as a warrior to take the direct approach, either.

"Yeees?" asks the stallholder, twitching his nose irritably, as if he's just been disturbed from some vitally important business.

"I must confess some interest in the origin of these pictures of yours. Could you perhaps tell me a little more about them?" asks Richard, making the universal gesture for 'and there's something in it for you, too'.

"Hmmm," says the little, bewhiskered man. "I gets these pictures from all over, yes, yes I do. Pretty pictures. You wants one?"

Richard sighs, leans over, and picks up the picture of Ingress. "This one," he says.

"Rrrark!" exclaims the stallholder, somewhat unexpectedly. "That one, that's pricey, that is. That one's precious."

"You like pictures, yes?" says Richard as he sorts through his pockets. In one of them is a picture of Jessica. The kind of passport-sized photograph you put in your wallet and feel self-conscious about. He pulls it out and offers it to to the stallholder, who snatches it greedy and studies it fiercely.

"Oh yes," chants the stallholder, "yes yes yes." He slips the photograph into a small frame he produces from some layer of the massive coat he was wearing, and stuffs the result into a different pocket.

"This picture," says Richard, trying to stay on subject, "where did it come from?"

"Some gentleman," says the stallholder, "looks like a cat, walks like a predator. Needed a portrait of Serpentine in a hurry."

"The Marquis," hisses Door. "I should have known he'd be behind it."

* * *

They finally corner the Marquis in a miserable hole of a gambling den. There's a racing track for rats and a ring where small, fierce creatures that Richard doesn't recognize try to bite and claw each other to death. There are chalk boards and cigarette smoke and cheap beer and vomit. And in a chair with a good view of the ring and a chalkboard beside him where he's recording bets, there's the Marquis de Carabas, holding court like a king with his noblemen.

"Carabas," spits Door as they approach.

"And a delight it is to see you, dearest Door," he replies magnanimously. "Do come up here, it's hard to see you in the crowd."

Door ascends the small platform on which the Marquis has planted his chair, Richard following protectively behind her.

"A little rat tells me you sold him this," she says without preamble, shoving the picture in the Marquis' face. He takes a moment to study it.

"So I did, so I did," he muses confidently. "And what would that be to you?"

"That's Ingress," she states bluntly.

"Ah," replies the Marquis, at least pretending to be caught somewhat by surprise by this eventuality. "You know how it is," he protests, "so many little girls with tragic pasts, you forget a few faces after a while."

"Stop playing games, de Carabas," rumbles Richard threateningly. He's getting good at that. Practice makes perfect, and all that.

"But, my dear friend," replies the Marquis in a wounded tone, "how could I call myself the Marquis de Carabas if I did not play games? My reputation would be ruined, ruined I tell you."

"Where is she?" demands Door, a harsh note in her voice that might be anger and might be the edge of tears. "Where is my sister?"

"For that," replies the Marquis coolly, "you'll have to ask the Shepherds."

A terrible hush descends for a moment on the gambling den. Nobody mentions the Shepherds lightly. Suddenly the interest level in the incomprehensible conversation beside the venn-baiting pit goes up considerably.

"The Shepherds?" repeats Door, in a hushed tone, fear evident in her eyes.

"It was around their territory that I found the article currently in your possession," repeats the Marquis, shrugging, "so I suppose you'll have to ask them where they got it from. Obviously not the ones I acquired it from, though. They won't be talking to anyone any more, being rather unfortunately dead."

* * *

People did see the Shepherds and live. They saw them on patrol around the edge of their territory. They saw them at the Market from time to time. They saw them here and there, marching forth on some inscrutable errand. What nobody had seen (and lived to return and spread the tale), save the Shepherds themselves, was what they were keeping within the perimeter of neat hazel-bush hedgerow which grew around their true domain.

Richard and Door are crouching in an outlet tunnel overlooking one of the lesser gates through the impenetrable hazel thicket, arguing over their next course of action.

"We can't just stroll in there," complains Door, gazing forlornly at the small opening in the hedgerow barred by a sturdy wooden gate. "The Shepherds have no care for reputation, you can't just stride your way past them pretending that you're harder than them."

"People go in all the time," explains Richard, who still thinks they ought to be over by the main gate. "The Shepherds don't proselytize, but they don't stop people going in."

"No, they just never leave!" exclaims Door. "How are you to know they don't just slaughter them all as soon as they're out of sight?"

"They must get more Shepherds from somewhere," objects Richard.

"That doesn't mean they use the people from outside their community," sighs Door. "Maybe there's a whole breeding population of Shepherds in there. Maybe they eat the people who can't resist poking around to see what's going on." She pauses to rally the rest of her argument. "Anyway, I don't want to become a Shepherd. I want to find my sister."

"But we've got something that none of the other recorded entrants have," insists Richard. "The problem is that you can't leave, right? But you can leave anywhere. We'll get in there, find your sister, and then you'll be able to lead us straight out again, however they stop people from getting out."

"Unless we're dead," points out Door. "Or properly restrained."

"But that photograph is of your sister after... what happened," says Richard. "So she can't have died straight away."

"She might have wandered around for a while before she got here," explains Door. "And hopefully they didn't get her at all, they just got the picture from somewhere else and we just have to find out where."

"And how is opening a door to wherever she was when the picture was taken going to help?" asks Richard, tiredly.

"You can't watch me all the time," says Door, petulantly. "Some time you're going to go to sleep, and then I'm going to do it without you there to come with me, or pick me up if I do fall over from the effort. So we should do it somewhere safe, together."

"Or we shouldn't do it at all," he says, "and we should go and infiltrate the Shepherds."

"You've just got the curiosity again," she accuses. "You want to go in there because you want to know what's on the other side."

"Partially," he admits. He looks so pathetic she can't help but smile.

"Okay," she grins. "Let's do it. At the main gate, like you said."

* * *

The main gate to Shepherd's Bush is a set of two farm-style gates, one of which is always open. It is attended by five Shepherds, two on each side, one in the middle. They watch Richard and Door approach, silently, impassively. Door giggles nervously as Richard hails them.

"Shepherds! We've come to discuss a girl that might or might not have come past here in the last several months."

The Shepherd in the middle makes eye contact with Richard. His eyes are suspicious and narrow.

"All are welcome here," he intones. "If you wish to know more of those inside, you will need to step inside yourselves."

Beyond the gate is another line of hazel bushes, planted so that there is a kind of corridor to enter around the edges between the two walls of hazel. Planted so that there is no way to see into the realm beyond.

"Very well, then," says Richard, and practically drags Door through the gate and to the left, picking a side confidently but pretty much at random.

The shepherd smiles thinly, eyes already back to looking straight ahead down the corridor linking this place with the rest of the Underside, as they pass.

* * *

The Marquis de Carabas, several decades later, wishes to cash in his favour with the girl he knew as Door, but even his extensive network cannot find any trace of them save that once they walked into Shepherd's Bush, and that was the last that was heard of them.

He takes up the case himself, and several years later he finds a photograph on the body of a Shepherd he has delivered to him by the sewer people. There is Richard, and Door, clearly together; there is Ingress, with a gentlemen who is unknown to the Marquis; and there are four children, two boys and two girls, who must have been conceived after the disappearance.

Looking at the photograph, he wonders if those who enter Shepherd's Bush never leave because they cannot, or merely because they do not want to.

One day, maybe, when he is older, when he is tired of this world and its games.

Maybe he will go there himself. Maybe he will find out.

 


End file.
